Daily Archives: March 21, 2012

Anna Pauline Andersson is a fine light-hearted singer; Mattias Nilsson is her pianist and future husband. They will be giving a free concert on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, at the Swedish Church — starting at 7 PM. Anna thinks there will even be a small gathering / reception afterwards where people can mingle and perhaps buy her debut record.

Anna tells me, “The concert we are giving is called (translated from Swedish) “Dual Traditions – The Meeting of Two Traditions,” where we combine Swedish folk songs and hymns with American traditional standards and hymns. The duration of the concert is 1 hour. So there will be both pretty, happy and swinging melodies as well as more traditional folk songs with a ‘hint’ of melancholy, which is so typical for Swedish folk music.”

Here is a video clip of Anna in performance — from Day to Night — with ISN’T THIS A LOVELY DAY into MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT. Mattias is on piano; Lasse Lundstrom, string bass; Jonas Holgersson, drums:

I did not know the singer Marianne Solivan before hearing her at Smalls last year (in duet with Michael Kanan). I was a believer — convinced of her artistry — a few minutes into the first song.

Her debut CD, PRISONER OF LOVE, is just out — perhaps timed to coincide with the end of winter.

It is a wonderfully accurate representation of what she creates in performance, and I do not say that casually about many recorded works.

If you find the disc’s title is off-putting, I will reassure you: Marianne Solivan is a brave, free artist — a prisoner of nothing, as far as I can see. In fact, she has written her own powerful verse to the title song, evidence of talents beyond her singing voice. On this disc, Marianne embraces a wide variety of emotions and textures in her work without being bound to any one of them.

Through intuition, taste, and experience, Marianne has avoided the traps that catch eager “jazz singers.” She surrenders herself to the song, both lyrics and melody, rather than insisting that the song bend itself to her will. This is not to say that she is excessively respectful, bound by the written manuscript, quarter note by quarter note. No. In fact, she takes her own liberties — subtly reshaping the original melody and words as she goes — but her little bends and pauses, elevations and turns, leave me with the feeling that I have heard, for example, a reading of I GUESS I’LL HANG MY TEARS OUT TO DRY that is what composer and lyricist aspired to create. She is just that successful in her sweet inventions.

Although Marianne never “sings like a horn player,” shorthand for someone pretending that written melody, cadence, and lyrics are to be tossed around vigorously, she does remind me of horn players — of late Lester and mid-period Ben, of Jimmy Rowles and early Miles. The singers who stand behind her are (among others) Sinatra and Betty Carter, but she has managed to make her own path around the intense pathos of one and the sharp dismissive edginess of the other.

And what Marianne does with the lyrics is uniquely rewarding. If you consider a sheet of music and lyrics, the words and syllables are often tied so tightly to individual notes that to sing them as written would be like reading a Keats sonnet, accenting every other syllable up and down to a metronome — thus obliterating meaning rather than enhancing it. Marianne doesn’t “speak” her lines — her voice, cello-rich and powerful, will not be ignored — but she gives the lyrics a speech-like naturalness, as if she were discovering the words and the sentiments for the first time. Great acting without an actor’s artifice: no self-pity, no drowning in pathos.

PRISONER OF LOVE is illuminated from within by intelligence, restraint, and headlong emotion. Marianne’s producer is the fine jazz trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, who appears on one track; she and he have the best taste in musical colleagues, including Michael Kanan, Christian McBride (showing himself a fine writer in addition), Peter Bernstein, Xavier Davis, Ben Wolfe, Johnathan Blake. The musicians are enthusiastic but never get in Marianne’s way: indeed, the eleven selections seem like a series of small playlets, of perfectly poised improvisatory conversations.

Here is a video memento of that evening at Smalls when I first heard Marianne — listen closely to her witty, amused, romantic recasting of THERE’S A SMALL HOTEL, where she is sometimes intimate, sometimes annunciatory:

As much as I admire that performance from July 2011, I can hear that Marianne has matured in the half-year since then . . . so imagine her at even higher levels of grace and casual splendor.

To hear her — only a few days ago — both singing and talking to John Schaefer of WNYC, click here.

Marianne’s CD is available at Amazon (for antiquarians like me who prefer the tangible disc and sleeve) and at iTunes for those who believe that music can be sped invisibly through the air: click here for the Amazon link.

And the best news is that the remarkable Miss Solivan will be performing in the next few months not only in New York City, but in Boston and Washington, D.C. To learn all, visit her website here.

I am most excited about another duet performance that she and Michael Kanan will be creating — delicate magic in our ears — at Michael’s studio, “The Drawing Room,” a large, quiet, white-curtained room with a fine piano. It’s at 70 Willoughby Street (# 2A, one flight up and follow signs on your left) in downtown Brooklyn — between Lawrence Street and Bridge Street, this coming Saturday, March 24, 2012. There will be two sets, beginning at 7:30 PM. And, since space is limited (seating for 50!) I recommend that you let Michael (at mpkanan@gmail.com) or Marianne (at her website) know that you will be there. Admission is only $10, and there will be a cash wine bar. Even for people like myself who are moderately challenged by Brooklyn, The Drawing Room is not difficult to get to: a variety of subway lines graciously come there: N,R,Q,B,F,A,C,E, 2,3,4,& 5 trains.

Marianne says, “Working in duo with Michael has been one of the most inspiring and challenging experiences in my life. I love the feeling of flight that I have with him in a song. I get so many musical ideas from him and I am challenged to be creative and honest. The feeling is amazing, I enjoy every minute of making music with him. We will be playing some songs from my new CD, Prisoner ofLove, as well as some of our other favorites. Breathing new life into melodies that will never get old. I hope you can come out and share this with us.”

This open letter from the young singer Julia Keefe is, I think, a very gracious way to discuss an uncomfortable subject. Since Miss Keefe is not in any way polemical, I might take the opportunity for a few lines. In the history of giving honors and recognition to jazz musicians and singers, there has been a fairly clear hierarchy. African-American men got first preference (and under that rubric were included all players whose ethnicity looked in the least similar), then followed by Caucasian men. A long pause ensued, then African-American woman, followed by a few women of other ethnicities. This isn’t an attack on Jazz at Lincoln Center, Mr. Marsalis, or any of the other august players and critics connected with JALC . . . but a quick perusal of the evidence will, I think, prove my general contention here correct.

When I was on the hiring committee at my college, we were instructed and encouraged — in the name of fairness, diversity, and equity — to ask ourselves “Who’s missing?” when we considered our prospective candidates. In this context, I believe that the answer to that question can properly begin with the name MILDRED BAILEY at the head of the list. I know that the late Richard M. Sudhalter and Hoagy Carmichael would agree with me.

Here’s Miss Keefe’s letter:

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NESHUI ERTEGUN JAZZ HALL OF FAME

March 19, 2012

Mr. Wynton Marsalis

c/o Selection Committee

Jazz Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center

33 West 60th Street, 11th Floor

New York, N.Y. 10023

Dear Mr. Marsalis and fellow Selection Committee Members:

My name is Julia Keefe, and I am a student at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL, studying vocal jazz performance. I am also a member of the Nez Perce Indian Tribe. Shortly after I first became interested in jazz over ten years ago, I began researching the life of Bing Crosby, who also attended my high school, Gonzaga Prep, in Spokane, WA. I was surprised and happy to learn that Bing Crosby gave credit for his early success to a Native American woman from the Coeur d’Alene Tribe named Mildred Rinker Bailey who had, like me, lived her formative childhood years on her Idaho tribal reservation before moving to Spokane and discovering jazz. I am writing to urge that Mildred Bailey be considered for induction into the Neshui Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame in recognition of her groundbreaking role in jazz history.

To say that Mildred Bailey inspired me in my chosen vocation as a jazz singer would be a great understatement. But I am not alone. Bing Crosby once said, “I was lucky in knowing the great jazz and blues singer Mildred Bailey so early in life. I learned a lot from her. She made records which are still vocal classics, and she taught me much about singing and interpreting popular songs.” And a sideman from her husband Red Norvo’s band, trumpeter Lyle “Rusty” Dedrick once wrote, “She had a magic. So many people down the line, so many singers, benefited from her, owe debts to her – and they don’t even know it. Mildred Bailey probably never made a bad record; she made many that were excellent, and quite a few considerably better, even, than that.”

As the very first female big band singer in America, Mildred was a role model and inspiration for contemporaries including Billie Holiday, Helen Ward and Ella Fitzgerald. She opened the door of opportunity for every female lead singer who followed the trail she blazed. Her singing style and phrasing caught the ear of aspiring young singers of that era including Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, and still, much later, Linda Ronstadt. She was respected and admired by performers including Frank Sinatra, the Dorsey brothers, Coleman Hawkins and Artie Shaw. A 1944 Time Magazine review of her show at the Café Society in New York called Mildred, “just about the greatest songbird in the U.S.”

Recognition of Mildred Bailey in the Jazz Hall of Fame would, I believe, open a door to a largely neglected and ignored chapter in the history of this All-American art form known as jazz: the involvement of First Americans. When I was living on my own reservation in Kamiah, ID, I came across old photographs of tribal members in small ensembles and quartets, playing jazz. One group, the Lollipop Six, was made up of young Nez Perce men who had learned to play their instruments while attending Indian boarding schools in the early 20th century. I can still recall how proud Lionel Hampton was when he visited our reservation to be honored while attending the international jazz festival at the University of Idaho that still bears his name.

On too many reservations in modern America there are not enough inspirational stories of successful native women who rose above the challenges they faced and helped to change history. But Mildred Rinker Bailey, did just that. Though widely thought to have been a white singer, Mildred was, in fact, a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Mildred once called traditional Indian singing, “a remarkable training and background” for a singer. “It takes a squeaky soprano and straightens out the clinkers that make it squeak; it removes the bass boom from the contralto’s voice,” she said. “This Indian singing does this because you have to sing a lot of notes to get by, and you’ve got to cover a lot of range.” Every Native American who has ever attended a tribal ceremony, whether a feast, a memorial, or a modern pow-wow, knows exactly what Mildred Bailey was talking about here. I believe that Mildred Bailey’s success as a jazz vocalist is grounded in her early vocal training and development from singing traditional tribal songs as a young girl on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation.

I would deeply appreciate the chance to provide you and the other selection committee members, and your entire international voting panel, with a complete packet of information that I have collected while researching the remarkable career of the first female vocalist in America to sing with a big band. Recognizing Mildred Bailey’s pioneering, ground breaking accomplishment, would do honor to the Neshui Ertegun Hall of Fame, and provide Indian tribes from across this country a symbol of their own contribution to the rich cultural heritage of a uniquely American art form that I have come to love, thanks in large part to Mildred Bailey.